


A Friend

by livesybaby



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Car Accident, M/M, Mention of Jacksons accident, Time Travel AU, a bit weird tbh, this just kinda happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 04:26:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14036139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livesybaby/pseuds/livesybaby
Summary: I'm not entirely sure what this is, it just came to me.It's set to fit in perfectly with actual events, Everything you've seen in Emmerdale STILL happened.Imagine if Aaron and Robert had met before?





	A Friend

The lorry seemed to swerve out of nowhere, one minute he’s driving away from Aaron - they’d been arguing over something-or-nothing and the next he’s reaching for his phone, intent on pulling over and calling Aaron to apologise. It was all unexpected for Robert but Aaron had been here before, watching someone he loved total their van, _or car in this case_ onto the tracks of a railway line. Thankfully this wasn’t a replay of Jacksons accident and the line had been disused for years but it didn’t stop the bile rising in his throat as he chased down the familiar road towards the wreckage. 

The doctor said they’d got to the hospital just in time, Robert already had damage to his lung from the shooting and that meant he was at much higher risk from the crash than he might have been before. Aaron doesn’t like to think of the _what if’s_ because he’s been here before, he knows exactly what the alternative is and so he’s more than a bit relieved that he gets to sit next to Roberts bed post-operation knowing he’ll make a full recovery as soon as the anaesthetic wears off. 

Robert of course is oblivious at this point, the last memory in his eyes was the oncoming traffic, the lorry that crashed through his car bonnet and narrowly missed his face, but he’d passed out before that so all he could see now was blackness, darkness, noir - and somehow everything felt a little bit _floaty_ and he was drifting weightlessly through a spectrum of light, unsure if and when he was ever going to wake up.

 

*

It was dark and he wasn’t quite sure where he was, looking around he could just make out the Hotten skyline in the misty distance so at least he was local, but how had he ended up here? He walked around aimlessly until a force stopped him abruptly, it was as though there was an invisible barrier around the car park he’d woke up in, something barricading him in so he couldn’t go any further. He reached his hand out to touch the invisible wall, it rippled colourlessly and the whole experience made him queasy. 

Turning around he found a small, one-story building in the centre of the car-park. He recognised it as an office block but was almost certain it hadn’t been there the last time he drove through here. Walking up to the double doors he saw flyers and posters and a white and black ‘Closed’ sign, He reached out and tested the door with his fingers, it was locked. He was almost about to give up and try and find another way off the car park but then he heard it, the shattering of glass barely a few feet away. He followed the perimeter around until he reached the source of the sound, a shattered sliding door on the far west side of the building, He tugged his jacket around him as he fit through the gap, protecting himself from the jagged shards of glass. 

It was dark inside the office block, the faint sound of a clock ticking on the wall and the buzz of a computer that had been left on the desktop. The date stamp on the screen-saver read 2008, but that couldn’t be right, could it? He shook the thought from his head, _too much Doctor Who, Sugden_. He thoughts were interrupted by a loud crash in the next room, he jolted for a second - heart pounding in his chest and grabbed the nearest form of weaponry he could find - A computer keyboard, of all things. 

Walking through the corridor he easily located the source of the crash from the similar sounds still coming from the room, he hesitantly crept around the door, instantly spotting a teenage lad in a grey hoodie spray-painting “SCUM” across the wall in bright red. From the back he looked barely seventeen, shorter than Robert but better-built, the trackies tucked into his socks screamed _chav_ but only one image came to his head as he raked his eyes over the figure - _A certain childhood photograph in the back room of the pub_.

“A-Aaron..?” Roberts voice shook, the keyboard still raised with both hands gripping it nervously

The boy shot around startled, baby-faced and scowling but definitely Aaron, _His Aaron_. 

“Who the fuck are you?” His voice spat back dangerously, if Robert hadn’t have known the big heart and soft eyes buried deep underneath the hardened exterior he might have been frightened. 

“A friend” Robert blurted, unable to think of any other reason why he knew _everything_ about the teenager in front of him “What are you doing?”

Aaron watched as Robert lowered the keyboard, throwing it to the floor and walking towards him with his hands held up in surrender. He couldn’t explain it but he trusted him, the blonde thirty-something man in front of him, there was something familiar in his eyes that made Aarons heart ache. 

“What’s it look like?” Aaron mumbled, nodding vaguely at the trashed office

Robert looked around at the damage, a PC monitor with the screen kicked in, various graffiti on the walls and smashed picture frames scattered across the floor. He picked up the nearest, a toddler with doe-eyes and blush-red cheeks, smaller and cheekier but most definitely Liv. 

“This is your D-.. _Gordons_ office?” Robert guessed

Aaron nodded quietly, assessing the man in front of him. Robert sighed, looking back at the boy he knew kept a darker secret than just _I really don’t like my Dad_. 

“You know it’d take _weeks_ to get the phone lines running after we cut through them?” Robert smirked, picking up the end of a lead and yanking it from the port in the wall. 

Aaron grinned, obviously impressed as he reached for another one and copied his movement. It took barely forty-five minutes before the workspace was trashed beyond repair, they were sat on the curb outside in the car park while Aaron lit up his second cigarette. 

“You should pack that in” Robert tutted “Bad habit” 

“Shut up” Aaron mumbled without malice, blowing out a puff of smoke as he lay back on his forearms “I’m stressed, alright? I need _something_ ” 

“You need your family” Robert pursed his lips before continuing “Your _real_ family”

“Yeah? Well I’ll go back in a couple of days, once Mum’s bored of me anyway” 

“Give her a chance, yeah?” Robert sighed “She does love you, you know?” 

“Try telling her that” Aaron responded dryly

“Paddy does too” 

“The bald one? He hardly knows me” Aaron frowned 

“Yeah, but he will” Robert smiled knowingly “Stick with him, he’ll see you right”

Aaron looked back at him curiously but if he was going to ask any more questions Robert wasn’t around to see it because soon everything was black and he felt like he was drifting again, the feeling of weightlessness and the sound of Aaron, _real Aaron_ shouting barely coherent words at his unconscious form. 

*

 

“I know you” Aarons voice came, frowning at the confused expression on Roberts face “Don’t I?”

Robert had woken for a second time, but this time he was in a park - sat on a bench next to a young, but older-than-last-time Aaron. He looked a state, knuckles bloodied and eyes glassy, his face red from crying - a sight Robert was all too familiar with. His duffel bag was at his feet and he looked shattered, the park was empty apart from the flicker of a street-light in the distance. 

“I’m a friend” Robert repeated, in the same way he had done before - smiling softly at the relaxation on Aarons face.

“You were right” Aaron breathed shakily “He does love me” 

“What happened?” Robert whispered, though he could almost guess from the sight before him. 

Aaron had told him in the barn one day about how hard it had been for him to come out, how he’d lashed out violently at Paddy, the only one who truly cared. He regretted it, _God! He regretted it_ but it was the only way he knew how to deal with things back then, fists or running - that was his motto. 

“I hit him” Aaron sniffed “I hit him and I couldn’t stop, I just-.. I didn’t want to hurt him.. I just wanted him to stop talking.. b-because..”

“Because you were scared” Robert said simply “You were scared of how you were feeling and Paddy had sussed you out, Paddy saying it aloud made it real.. and you can’t handle that, not yet”

Aaron stared back at him curiously for a few seconds before biting his lip and looking down to his feet

“He said I’m like a son to him” 

“You are” Robert smiled “He loves you regardless, even now” 

“But I hurt him” 

“Yeah, you did” Robert smiled sadly “But he cares about you enough to help you through this”

“I don’t deserve it” 

“Yes you do Aaron, you deserve to be _really_ happy - just let it happen”

“It’s not that simple”

“If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth it” Robert shrugged “You’ve got to fight for it Aaron, you’ve got to want it so badly that you’ll do anything to make it happen” 

“I _do_ ” Aaron sighed “I want to be happy, I really do” 

“Then go home Aaron” Robert smiled “Stop sulking on a park bench and go home, make it up with Paddy and let him help you, things will get better, I promise” 

By the time the memory fizzled out and Robert was drifting back into unconsciousness Aaron was just an image, walking off into the darkness with his bag over his shoulder, going home. 

*

The third time he woke up he could tell instantly he wasn’t in Hotten, or even England for that matter. There was a flicker of a neon sign in the distance from a club called La Perle, he was in France then - or so he guessed, he knew that Aaron had been here though he didn’t talk about it much. It was barely a few minutes when he came into view, older and much more like the Aaron he’d first met back in that barn with Ross Barton. Though his eyes were vacant and not full of the energy he’d grown to love, he looked drained. 

“What are you doing here Aaron?” Robert sighed sadly

Aaron barely looked awake, his eyes glassy and cheeks flushed from the cold “I don’t know any more” he sighed sadly “Everything is a mess.” 

The found their way back to a shitty studio flat that Aaron was barely able to pay the rent on, sitting on a mattress on the floor drinking the last bit of coffee from the jar. Aaron told Robert everything, how he’d taken the blame for Adam but heard that he’d gotten himself into something dodgy, wasting the chance of a lifetime that Aaron had given to him. He spoke of Ed, how the relationship had fizzled out, as had the posh job that came with it - he’d been broke for months, living between these four walls, sometimes skipping meals because the bar work just wasn’t paying enough. 

He wanted out, wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and just wait for it all to end but he couldn’t do that, he owed it to his Mum and Paddy not to mess up again, not to have them crowding around his hospital bed waiting for him to pull through. 

“You need to go back home” Robert sighed “Adam can deal with the consequences, serve his time” 

“I can’t do that to him, I can’t let him go through all that.. he should be living his life..”

“Yeah but he’s not is he? And he’s going to end up banged up with or without you, you may as well take the chance that they’ll go lightly on him, either that or he can go on the run himself.. this isn’t all on your shoulders Aaron”

He spoke of Jackson, of how he deserved a life in solitude because he’d robbed the only man he’d ever loved of his. That line stung Robert, but then he remembered that Aaron hadn’t met him yet, not really - but he couldn’t meet him here, living a lonely life in France - he needed to go back to Emmerdale, steal his stupid car and find his way into his arms again, he needed this, they both did. 

“Go home Aaron, you’ve punished yourself enough”

*

“Robert!” Aaron was hysterical, his voice so distant yet so close as he pleaded with him “Please Robert, You can’t die - I can’t lose you - not like this!” 

There was a lot of noise, shouting and sirens and shuffling about until nothing, radio silence and static. It felt like minutes but it must have been hours when Robert started to feel warm again, his body feeling full and _real_ rather than the floating spirit he’d been for the last day, week, month? He couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes yet, the lids felt heavy and his brain felt spacey - he could sense a presence next to him and a heavy warmth enveloping his hand and most of his forearm, his fingers twitched lightly to brush against hot skin, warm and familiar _Aaron_. 

He forced himself to wake up, slowly opening his eyes though thick with sleep and blurry until the white room came into focus. The beeping of a monitor next to him alerted him to the realisation that he was in a hospital bed, though he didn’t know what day it was, or even what year.. had he made it back home? Aaron stirred next to him, sleeping face-down with his head resting on his arms - had he been there the whole time? Roberts memory was vague, filled with memories though he wasn’t sure which were real or not. 

“A-Aaron..?” He whispered tentatively, throat thick and voice shaky 

Aaron shot up, staring blankly at Robert for a moment until his face softened “Robert..”

Aaron pushed the call button at the side of his bed and things happened quickly, a nurse and a doctor interrupted the curious silence in his room, bustling around doing observations that tired him out, talking about medical jargon as Aaron watched him curiously, something unusual in his expression. It felt like forever before they left them in peace, finally able to process the memory that he’d been in an accident, still unsure whether they entire thing was a dream. 

“What are you thinking about?” Aaron asked, his voice laced with some kind of confusion that Robert just couldn’t place

“You” Robert answered easily “I.. I had the weirdest.. dream?” 

“Is that a question?” Aaron furrowed his brow

“I don’t know” Robert sighed “It felt real.. more like.. a memory..” 

Aarons face softened, eyes wide as he stared back at his husband before whispering carefully 

“Who are you, Robert?” 

Roberts lip twitched at the familiarity of the question, Aaron was testing him - he knew that somehow

_“A friend.”_


End file.
